Battle of the Solar System: An Impossible Voyage to the Edge of Space

Tubby never doubts his ability to handle a crisis, even when he barely understands what is happening. When a frantic Gravity Professor pulls him from an astronomy lecture, Tubby learns that two scientists may be preparing to destroy the Solar System. Within minutes, he is aboard a homemade spacecraft that can grow larger every sixty seconds.

Their vessel soon dwarfs planets, races past entire galaxies, and reaches a strange realm beyond ordinary space. Unfortunately, the Professor has forgotten several essential details. He does not know exactly where they are going, and his only weapons are two potato knives from the Ten-Cent Store. Tubby remains confident. Somewhere ahead, a starving prisoner waits inside a sealed tower while a gigantic follower of Ptolemy prepares to defend his impossible view of the universe.

Battle of the Solar System combines astronomical spectacle with the comic confidence of a hero who never realizes how unprepared he is. Ray Cummings turns changing scale into one outrageous surprise after another. Planets become playthings, galaxies become obstacles, and an argument over celestial mechanics becomes dangerously physical. The result is a fast, inventive adventure that keeps expanding until even the title seems too small.

Ray Cummings was born Raymond King Cummings in 1887 and worked for Thomas Edison from 1914 to 1919 before establishing his fiction career. His first major science fiction success, The Girl in the Golden Atom, appeared in All-Story Weekly in 1919 and later became the foundation of a novel. He returned frequently to miniaturization, enlarging worlds, altered dimensions, and cosmic changes of scale.